She made no answer. While he was dipping his fingers in the glass bowl,
he saw she was so tired that he dared not say any more. He found himself
in the presence of a secret which he did not wish to know; in presence of
an intimate suffering which one word would reveal. He felt anxiety,
fear, and a certain respect.

He threw down his napkin.

"Excuse me, dear."

He went out.

She tried to eat, but could swallow nothing.

At two o'clock she returned to the little house of the Ternes. She found
Jacques in his room. He was smoking a wooden pipe. A cup of coffee
almost empty was on the table. He looked at her with a harshness that
chilled her. She dared not talk, feeling that everything that she could
say would offend and irritate him, and yet she knew that in remaining
discreet and dumb she intensified his anger. He knew that she would
return; he had waited for her with impatience. A sudden light came to
her, and she saw that she had done wrong to come; that if she had been
absent he would have desired, wanted, called for her, perhaps. But it
was too late; and, at all events, she was not trying to be crafty.

She said to him:

"You see I have returned. I could not do otherwise. And then it was
natural, since I love you. And you know it."